ITT: Post the stupidest military moves in history

>>664878

Hitler attacking Stalin.

>>664878

While not empire ending, in terms of "What the fuck were you thinking" level stupidest, I'd have to go with Hitler's decision to move 14 divisions up to occupy/guard Norway, creating a military presence there that was 1/6 of the total population and putting some good troops in a theater that never saw action, could not reasonably be assumed to ever see action, and were hard to withdraw to other fronts when needs became pressing elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Monte_Cassino#After_the_bombing

Pearl Harbor
>risk 6 carriers far from the rest of the navy for a one-off attack by 300 single-engine bombers
>when multiple raids by 1000+ four-engine bombers couldn't put a base the size of Pearl Harbor out of commission
>end up sinking like 2 ships
>original plan was to have pilots ditch and swim back to the carriers
It didn't end in a disaster but that was more due to luck and carelessness by the US than anything.

>>664878
Alexander against India
Spain against every other euro power
Romans against germanic tribes
Spain against its former colonies
Every Napoleon move. Defeating italians is not that great.

>>664878
Nicias doomed the Athenians during the Sicilian from escaping because "muh eclipse".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition

I cry everytiem desu

>>664878
Stalin invading Spain

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There is this one vintage battle.

>>664941
Agincourt was a great battle to read about. Those longbowmen absolutely wiped the floor

>>665060

Says the person who has clearly done no actual reading on Agincourt.

>>665066
I am hazy but wasn't it the archers with knives who took the toll on the unhorsed french?

>>665066
He read the wikibox.

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>>664878
This battle is stupid, but the background to it is also one of the most depressing.

>>665077

Knives and mallets, yes, but pretty much only after the French had worn themselves down against the lien of men-at-arms in the center.

My apologies if I jumped down your throat: popular imagery of Agincourt is one where the bowmen shoot wave after wave of French knights who never make it to the English battle line, which is simply wrong: the bowmen only really became effective after they dropped their bows and engaged hand to hand.

>>665106
Oh different poster, I knew the actual longbow had little impact, just never read enough to know where the main blood letting happened.

>>665106
>the bowmen only really became effective after they dropped their bows and engaged hand to hand.

so why the fuck did henry v spend months collecting stockpiles of arrows and english kings place so much value on archery practice
>le angry welshman with a knife slaying armoured knights by the thousand

>>664892
Also Hitler declaring war on the US

>>665119
Bows are extremely useful in siege warfare where your penned in enemies generally aren't as well armored (not being full time soldiers) and the slower pace of action means area denial attempts work better.

In a pitched battle against a force predominantly in plate armor? Completely useless. There are 0 confirmed accounts of any of the heaps of French casualties being brought down by an arrow at Agincourt. We have diaries and testimonies of people drowning in mud, of getting stabbed in the armpit, being brained by hammers, and impaled by pole arms, but not a one killed by an arrow.

>>665136
arrows kill horses

>>665144
Which might mean something if the charges at Agincourt were mounted. The advance was on foot.

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>>665156
REEEEEEEE I READ THEY WERE ON HORSIES STOP SAYING THEY WEREN'T REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>665136
Bows kill soft targets which were plenty.

>>665167
...I am no expert on Agincourt or that period's warfare but even I know french plate at that time would have basically negated arrows. They would be good for stay kills or funneling forces toward foot but that is about it.

>>664913
>end up sinking like 2 ships
actually they've only destroyed one and it was lucky shot

the rest was repaired and took part in actions not too long after the attack

Aviation superiority over navy is a myth, Tirpitz took 3 5000kg bombs to sink and it was constantly bombed for 3 years. Over and over. Finally they've brought the dambusters and managed to do it but you see how much it takes to sink a battleship.

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>Invades Egypt
>Loses the empire

>>665183

Taranto, Bismarck's crippling, and, oh yeah, every single battle in the Pacific where the battleships never engaged or didn't engage meaningfully.

For fuck's sake, Taffy 3 beat back some of the heaviest big gun ships in the IJN.

>>664905
the eternal anglo strikes again

>>665183
>Aviation superiority over navy is a myth
Depends on what you mean. Battleships were hard to sink, but it was not hard (relatively speaking) to put a fleet out of action with an aircraft swarm. Smaller ships were vulnerable to bombs, and battleships, while not at risk of sinking, would be crippled or rendered inoperable.

>>664892
From the Nazi standpoint, this made perfect sense.

Ideologically, he could not take down the Judeo-Bolshevik cabal without destroying the Bolshevik half. Hitler and his circle legitimately believed that the USSR was equatable with the Jewish establishment he destroyed through his domestic programs.

Strategically, Hitler was convinced that invading the Russians before they could invade him was the only option.

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>stupid napoleon left the pratzen heights, ahah
>let's attack that weak right wing

>>665199
>Bismarck's crippling
Was destroyed by navy.
>Taranto
Wild shot
>every single battle in the Pacific where the battleships never engaged or didn't engage meaningfully.
Absolutely false

Meanwhile I must remind you that Musashi survived ~20 bombs over 250 kg and 17 torpedoes. It was sent on a certain death without screening though so it couldn't do shit, but no other ship could survive this much. If it was used normally, with proper escort etc. it would be enormous asset. Armour is in fact greatly underestimated in naval thought and as evidenced by Falklands war, where Royal Navy lost several ships for literally no reason other than them having no armour at all shows that there's still a role for huge armoured beasts with accurate guns.

I'm not saying that traditional navy with almost no aviation is superior to modern navy but the whole "muh plane made warships redundant" is awful lie and myth. Aircraft carriers were to be phased out until navy has found a way to use them for nuclear first strike(and used them conventionally afterwards) while blue water navies(well, there's only one now) can profit a lot from having few battleships here and there. From bombing(very cost-effective bombing mind you) to ordinary naval warfare, they're simply great.

US navy keeps their Iowas for very good reason(they're enormous asset). There just was never need to replace them with new model as everybody else stopped playing with this class.

>>665238
>US navy keeps their Iowas for very good reason(they're enormous asset).
Are you the battleship anon from /k/?

>>665238
>Musashi survived
No it didn't.

>>665238

>Was destroyed by navy.

After being bombed by swordfish from the Ark royal, which kept her from getting to full speed or turning. Hence the word "crippling".

>Wild shot

Hardly. Was Truk also a wild shot? How about Coral Sea? The Prince of Wales and the Repulse? The Great Indian Ocean raid? The Phillipine Sea?

>Meanwhile I must remind you that Musashi survived ~20 bombs over 250 kg and 17 torpedoes. It was sent on a certain death without screening though so it couldn't do shit, but no other ship could survive this much. If it was used normally, with proper escort etc. it would be enormous asset

If it was used normally, it couldn't actually catch an Essex class carrier, which could stay out of its gun range indefinitely while its air complement stung it and its escorts to death. And that's assuming the Musashi can even find the American task force, which would be doubtful without some sort of air reconnaissance.

All the armor in the world doesn't mean crap if you can't strike at your enemy, and battleships need to get damn lucky to get close enough to a carrier to do any sort of damage to them. And sooner or later, a lucky bomb strike or more likely a torpedo gets you. And then you've got an expensive coffin for thousands of people.

>but the whole "muh plane made warships redundant" is awful lie and myth.

It isn't a myth. An exaggeration, perhaps, but it's hardly completely unfounded. Airplanes can deliver firepower faster and more precisely and with less risk than a big gunship. It's as simple as that. And they're being phased out, not because the big gunships are coming back, but because it's going even one level more remote: why get a plane to carry a missile when you can just push a button somewhere and fire the missile from a base?

>US navy keeps their Iowas for very good reason

2 ships in mothballs which were stricken from the listing in 2006. Who hadn't been used as anything but a shore bombardment platforms for decades prior.

>>665238
>It was sent on a certain death without screening
No, the Musashi was part of a large fleet numbering almost 30 ships when it sank.

>>664894
Hitler was convinced that an American or even British invasion was coming.

His best bet would have been to convince Norway to stay neutral, like Spain.

Those Norwegian troops would not have been enough to win the war, though. After 1942 the Nazis had no change. Hitler's biggest failure was not surrendering soon after D-Day.

>>665394

>Hitler was convinced that an American or even British invasion was coming.

Yes, based on fucking nothing though.

>Those Norwegian troops would not have been enough to win the war, though. After 1942 the Nazis had no change. Hitler's biggest failure was not surrendering soon after D-Day.

Oh, I realize, which is why I said it isn't empire ending, but stupidest in the sense of the greatest deviation I know of from a hypothetical "good command" sort of standard.

And honestly, I would have put both the point of no return and the good surrender point considerably earlier.

>>664941
The 10,000 dead are also incredibly significant.

In the context of WW2, that doesn't seem like a lot, but the losses at Agincourt left an impact that was felt by France for decades.

A plurality of those 10,000 men would have been nobles, and many were actually very powerful dukes, counts, and their immediate children. A loss of that magnitude essentially wiped out the entire French ruling class of military age, leading to enormous confusion and strife in the French government.

Imagine if, during WW2, the Japanese had flattened Washington instead of Pearl Harbor.

>>665091

I will never stop finding it hilarious that the Russians sailed halfway around the damn world to get sunk.

>>665404
>Yes, based on fucking nothing though.
Based on the fact that Norway is the fucking hat over Germany, has a long ass coastline, and British commandos were constantly raiding various points on the coast line.

>>665420

You've also got terrible weather, a lack of large scale infrastructure for building up a lot of hardware, the need for any liberation of Norway to then mount a secondary invasion to get anywhere else, and the fact that it's going to be absolute hell getting inland from those beaches, as the Germans learned when they were attacking the place.

There's absolutely no reason to assume there would ever be a major Allied incursion into Norway, as opposed to say, France or Belgium.. Strike for the jugular.

>>665060
>>665066
>>665077
>>665106
>>665117
>>665119
>>665136
>>665144
>>665156
>>665161

JESUS.

Agincourt was not the only major English victory of the Hundred Years' War. Your perceptions of the battle are clouded due to the popular confusion with the decades-earlier battles of Crecy and Poitiers, which -did- involve longbowmen destroying cavalry and Italian crossbowmen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Poitiers

>>665404
Did they have any more reason to expect an invasion of France than they did an invasion of Norway?

>>665444

France is a major occupied Allied power, whom, if liberated could contribute quite a bit to the overall war effort. Germany was still extracting fairly significant amounts of resources out of France (mostly food and some coal) which you could not say the same for about Norway.

More directly, France offers a route towards Germany directly, it's far easier to control the skies over because of its proximity to England, you have lots and lots of ports along the French coast, which make resupply easier, and the flatter terrain makes a breakout far simpler. Plus, you have a chance of linking up with your forces already established in Italy.

>>665429
>There's absolutely no reason to assume there would ever be a major Allied incursion into Norway, as opposed to say, France or Belgium.. Strike for the jugular.
There's reason to assume that a landing at France or Belgium was more likely, but why would that lead to there being no reason to assume the less attractive alternative?

>>665480

Because allied resources, especially landing craft aren't unlimited, and they're not going to waste them on a risky adventure that ultimately gains them nothing of strategic value when they have actual targets that can win them the war and are easier to hit as well on the table.

>>664941
> what if the french had large shield and used testudo?

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>>664878
The 12 battles for Isonzo.

>>664912
That soup kettle was a hero.

>>665119

Because that is how battles go? Namely, not always how you plan for them.

Read the English chronicle of Agincourt, the Deeds of Henry V, written by someone who claimed to have been there and seen the battle with his own eyes. In the battle section itself, it mentions bows about 3 times, almost in passing. The bulk of the battle is hand to hand combat.

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Bombs Pear Harbor knowing the entire jap military stands no chance.

>>665698
>What is a preemptive strike?

>>665698
Hirohito was the autistic buglover, Yamamoto Isoroku was the admiral who did the Pearl Harbor.

>>665739
Are you sure you know what those words mean?

>>665756
It was almost inevitable that the US and Japan were going to enter into armed conflict and the attack on Pearl Harbor was an attempt to knock out the US navy. Unfortunately the Japanese overestimated the success of their plan and underestimated American manufacturing power.

>>665786
> Unfortunately the Japanese overestimated the success of their plan and underestimated American manufacturing power.

They didn't, they underestimated the US's willingness to fight. Their whole goal was to bluff or coerce the US into not getting tangled in the pacific. They knew from the start the strength of the US economy

>>665786

So, no, you don't know what those words mean. "They might attack me one day in the indeterminate future so we may as well attack them now" does not a pre-emptive strike make.

>>665748
And where did Yamamoto get his orders?

>>665908
What is your point exactly? Are you implying that Hirohito was the mastermind behind Pearl Harbor?

>>665091
Someone pls post the greentext

>>665449
Resources is what it's about.
It's been a while since I've read anything on the subject but if I recall correctly Germany saw Norway as a strategic position due to its position between the Baltic and the North Atlantic and was essential to securing the flow of metals and other supplies from Sweden (neutral) which the British would have been very interested in stopping (the British were pretty big on this strategic use of their navy)
I believe that Germany was also interested in naval facilities in the north Atlantic which the British were understandably threatened by.

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>>665180
>kill the horse
>knight falls into the deep mud
>knight can barely move
>british peasants stab the poor fucker

>>666198
They were yeomen, not peasant.

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>>665786
>It's unfortunate that thousands of American survived

I'm going to need you to step outside for moment sir.

Mark Clark going to Rome for the glory, allowing the 10th Army to successfully withdraw behind the Gustav Line

>>665214
>Napoleon left the pratzen heights
Uh...no. Russians left the heights after Alexander overruled Kutuzows plan to hold their heights, Napoleon then took them while they were lightly defended.

Battle of the Bulge.

Pretty much everything Russia did in World War I was incredibly dumb. Especially the Provisional Government's attempt to siege the German's to win support at home.
Turkey definitely fucked up the hardest, but Russia definitely deserves an honorable mention.

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Post dank Antiochus'

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>>667299

>>667287
Brusilov offensive fucked some shit up, even if at the usual cyka blyat rate of like 2:1

>>665648
God he was one serious piece of shit.

>>667094
Napoleon left the pratzen heights BEFORE the battle.

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>>666120

>>665091

Kekd remembering that greentext

>>665091
i had to do some unrelated research in press from that year, it was a real sensation how ruskies got their asses handed to them

>>664878
Obligatory
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade

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>Leave most powerful naval squadron in the world behind due to awful signalling
>dont open fire till well after the germans open fire despite outranging them and being faster
>unable to hit the broad side of a barn due to lackadaisical gunnery training
>2 ships blow up due to appaling flash control measures due to awful gunnery results, leading to the doctrine of rapid fire which was effectivley fire as fast as possible
>when retreating from the high seas fleet again fail to link up with the fast battleships leading to HMS Warspite almost getting sunk as she holds up the entire german fleet
>saved after the battle due to an official cover up of faulty practices
>proceed to slander everyone else after the battle and kicked off a fued with would divide the navy for 20 years

Fuck Beatty

>>664878
Cadorna, hands down.

>>667804
>Let's go on a crusade to kill Saracens and help Christians
>Kills Christians
>Helps Saracens

Fucking Venice man

>>668919
If only their doge could see the consequences of his actions.

>>668919
>>668938
>Orthodox are Christians
>Orthodox aren't heretics too

>>668919
>Let's go crusade and kill saracens
>a christian asks you to please help him to get his throne
>be nice and help him
>shitty locals kill your bro
>crush them

Crusaders did literally nothing wrong, except for the failure to create an actual powerful Latin Empire.

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>>667317
>>667299

The dankest meme man

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>>668919
The glory of the most serene republic is something Greek autists had to learn the hard way.

>>668938
ayy lmao

>>668938
Noice

Literally any battle the russians took part in the Polish-Soviet war

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>>671717
>minimum USSR strength: 104,000
>minimum USSR casualties: 110,000

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>>671742

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>>671751
Sorry lads, thought it was cropped already

>>664894

They couldn't let them have norway because then they'd get sweden as well. If they had sweden, they had germanies supply of iron ore and their industry would've ground to halt and been fucked pretty quick. They then would've had good control of the baltic, meaning germanies northern shore was now at risk, and there was also a much easier supply route for the allies to supply russia.

British raids in norway, good espionage, counterintelligence and deception kept the fear of a norway invasion very alive. And it was very important.

>>671793
Not to mention capturing Norway alliveiated the fears of a scenrio where the Royal Navy could starve the Germans of vital resources from Sweden -namely ball bearings and the such.

No, the Norwegian invasion was necessary. Placing 200,000 troops in fucking Denmark was not.

>>665210
> Strategically, Hitler was convinced that invading the Russians before they could invade him was the only option.
Is there any actual evidence of this? It makes sense only in hindsight, and only when post-Soviet historians want to justify Nazi invasion in an attempt to equate nazism with communism.

I'm quite certain Hitler thought the Bolsheviks were weak pushovers.